Friday, February 10, 2012

Adam Sandler

     What can you say about the movies of Adam Sandler?  Sure, most of them have the crass, bathroom humor that today's audience seems to find hilarious, but there are flashes of brilliant comedy here and there that you can't ignore.  We just finished watching "Jack and Jill" , a movie where Adam plays both lead roles, and for the most part carries it off fairly well.  The funniest bits in the movie, for me, are the scenes with Al Pacino, playing himself and the commercial at the end of the film where he is pushing "Dunkacino", Dunkin' Donuts' new flavor.  That was worth watching the movie for in itself.
     One of Adam's first roles was Smitty, Theo Huxtable's friend on "The Cosby Show".  You probably don't remember this role and i was hard-pressed myself to bring it to mind.  This was in 1987 and Adam was just 21 years old.  He was actually doing stand-up comedy at age 17 when he was going to school and was discovered in by none other than Dennis Miller who brought him to Lorne Michaels' attention.  Adam became a writer for Saturday Night Live in 1990, becoming one of the cast regulars in 1991.  Not to shabby as Adam is fond of saying.
      His first feature film was "Airheads", playing next to Brendan Fraser.  I thought this was a pretty good movie, and if you are interested in catching Adam in his younger days, I suggest you check it out.  It really is a movie about 3 Airheads who hijack a radio station just to get their music on the air.  Of course it goes wrong and snowballs out of control.  Pretty funny, though.
     One of my favorites, but by no means his best was "Billy Madison", released in 1995.  The humor is juvenile, but if you don't think about it too much, it is pretty funny stuff.  Which is how I view most of his movies.  By 1995, Saturday Night Live had fired Adam, but his movie career was taking off and he was making a killing doing live comedy tours. 
     He had a big hit with "Waterboy", one of my personal favorites, and got to play along with one of my favorite actresses, Kathy Bates.  She played the role of his mother perfectly.  Who else could play a role straight like that and still make it funny.  He has done more serious roles, such as the one for "Punch-Drunk Love" for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award.  Unfortunately he didn't win.
     Another one of my favorites was "Just Go With It", filmed with Jennifer Anniston.  In this one he portrays a plastic surgeon who asks his office assistant (Jennifer) to pose as his wife in order to prove his honesty.  You know he's going to end up with Jennifer at the end of the movie, but getting there is half the fun.
     Adam also has a tendency to hook his friends up with bit parts in most of his movies.  David Spade appeared in drag in the aforementioned "Jack and Jill".  Even Shaquille O'neal shows up doing a commercial for a ham product.  The list is almost endless.  Even the untalented Norm Macdonald shows up every now and then.
     There is a worst Adam Sandler movie that I just have to mention, as you may want to torture yourself by watching it.  It is "Mr. Deeds", a remake of the 1936 movie "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", which was a wonderful old comedy.  Sadly, it didn't quite work.  Winona Ryder plays the love interest.  That should tell you something.  I think she did this movie just after her arrest for shoplifting, and she acts just like she was in another movie.  It was a terrible movie.  Even Rob Schneider's bad acting was a relief in this movie.  Unfortunately it keeps popping up on TBS and other channels that like to repeat bad movies over and over, and I have a compulsion to watch a movie to it's bitter end once I pop on a channel.  Lucky me.
     Anyway, in the main, I enjoy watching Adam Sandler on the big screen, and hopefully he will make a few more in the next few years.  He is getting up there in years, almost 50, but hopefully as he matures (which I hope he never does), he will continue to put out the kind of movies that make me forget about the real world for about 1 hour and 45 minutes at a time.
     Thanks for reading everyone.  Have a better one.

No comments:

Post a Comment